Google Drive set to launch next week with 5GB of free storage

Google is planning to launch their long-rumored cloud storage solution next week. The free service will be called Google Drive and is expected to directly compete with the likes of Dropbox and SugarSync, according to a report from The Next Web’s Brad McCarty.

McCarty received a draft release from a Google Drive partner that’s filled with information on the pending service. For starters, Google is offering 5GB of free storage to every user, or 3GB more than Dropbox. As with the rival service, users will be able to purchase additional storage as needed. It’s worth noting that HTC users have access to an additional 25GB of storage.

It’s still somewhat unclear exactly how the service will work on a Mac. Windows users shouldn’t have any issue linking the service with their existing Google accounts but from what McCarty can gather from the material he received, the service will work “in desktop folders” on both platforms. So yeah, it’s still vague and its exact operation remains unknown.

McCarty expects Google to launch the service sometime in the middle of next week, likely either Tuesday or Wednesday. Google Drive will be available for Android, iOS, Mac and PC but there isn’t any word on how much additional storage will cost. Keep an eye on drive.google.com as this is the URL listed in the leaked screenshot shown above.

Do you use any form of cloud storage? If so, which service do you prefer and why?